Secrets
by HermioneMew
Summary: Fixed the formatting! Now see what you think of it!
1. The Secret

A/N: Yes! I'm a pioneer! I doubt (HIGHLY) that anyone has ever written a Lucius-fic before. (Believe me, I was fighting the temptation to call this a "Lucy-fic".) And yes, it's loosely based on Ace Sanchez's "Secrets". (No, it's not here. I MUST email Ace and tell him about this site.) 

Disclaimer: Ummm...Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, and Voldemort are J.K. Rowling's. Andromeda is a figment of my twisted and complex imagination. 

Everyone views me as what I am-a cold, cruel, heartless man. That's true. Halfway. I'll admit I have a temper that knows no bounds, and I do worship Voldemort. But that's where the truth ends and the unspeakable cover-up began. I remember Voldemort...he was forcing me to kill...I had to. It was him or me. I have a one-track mind, and yes, I'm a little-no, pretty damn selfish. I killed him. Any woman in my position would have followed Voldemort's orders. Either Lucius Malfoy would die or I would. What else could I have done? And the boy-Draco-he was why I got expelled from the Dark Forces. He was only an infant. He had just lost his father at the hands of, I'll readily admit, one of the cruelest and coldest women ever to walk the earth. How could I have not taken him in? How could I have killed him? He was so sweet, so innocent. Being the woman I really am, I adopted him. I've gotten pretty used to being referred to as 'Father'. He often asks me details about my 'wedding'. I usually shrug him off and tell him to go do something else. How can I tell him the truth? About his real and false father? About his real and false mother? He is fourteen, a responsible adult, but still the infant he was the fateful night when his father died. I never really think about Draco's mother. She was dead almost immediately after he was born. Her death is another sin engraved on my heart of stone. My 'wife', better known as my sister, Andromeda, is my only confidant. People think I can't live with myself. That's also true. Many more nights than not, I talk with my sister for hours. I ask her how long I can hide this secret from Draco. His parents are dead, she isn't his mother, and I am anything but his father. Should I...? Will he...? He would never forgive me. He would probably kill me. Alarmingly, every time I think that, I get a beastly urge to spill all the secrets. Since he had to cope with the big bad world of boarding school, he confides in me more than ever. Is this a coincidence? He'll kill me if I tell him, and for the last three years, I've been seriously contemplating suicide. Andromeda has become very distant since I told her. She never trusted herself with secrets when we were younger. She never wants to be with Draco for long periods of time, thinking she might let the secret slip. It saddens me. What to do? Draco will be shattered either way. I hate to admit it, but I'm becoming distant as well. Should I let him kill me? Or should I leave it up to me? My sister and I now wish our father, who we used to resent so much, were with us. He was a large, intimidating man, and very sour, seeing as he wanted boys from the start. Even so, he would always offer advice. I think about him all the time, usually at night. His memory alone is enough to make me cry. If I had to go to him with a predicament like this...oh, here I go again...if he was still alive, he would just be another option for me. Another option for death. My present is a carbon copy of my past. The two of us, especially Andromeda, being the less tomboyish one, often feared that our father would kill us. That was just juvenile girlish funk (silly fear), but this huge coverup I'm carrying out would undoubtedly drive him so far as to murder both his daughters without a second thought. I have always been an actress. I could never be the coward I occassionally am in front of my father. Hogwarts was worse. This brings me back to the 'marriage'. I fell in love with about seven fine young men at school, but of course my father would make my life a living hell if I admitted it. None of them were pureblooded. I was forced to pretend that I hated them. Do you know what that's like? Spitting insults at a boy while staring into his eyes and wishing he would kiss you? Fistfighting with girls when you wish you could be gossipping with them under the covers at night? Scorning and discriminating children, shrugging them off like so much trash, while in your heart you know you want to spend the rest of your life with them? And all because of a father, a man who is supposed to shield you, make you feel loved, make sure that you are happy? I made at least several attempts to kill myself before my graduation. Needless to say, at times I was afraid my father would do the killing for me. Though only in my forties, my life is already over. Every passing day is another struggle with myself. And every passing day, I come closer to losing. One day I am going to die. That's inevitable, but I get this morbid feeling it'll be by my own hands. Every once in a while, I look back on my life in every aspect. Romance...I fell in love, but was not allowed to love them. Family...I am 'married' to my sister and am raising a boy who is orphaned because of me. Self peace...I often consider myself dead. 

My death is inevitable. I'll tell Draco everything, and he will undoubtedly kill me. I could ask Andromeda to kill me. Or I could commit the most selfish crime in existence. End my own suffering. Suicide. How I long for the sweet bliss of death. If only I could get it. If only. 

A/N: Wasn't that sad? Wasn't that strange? Let me know in your reviews if you think it was weird or angsty. Please review! And don't start bombarding me with reviews that say "Lucius doesn't have a sister" "If that isn't Draco's dad, how come 'he' looks like him?" "How come 'he' killed Lucius when the real person is a follower of Voldemort himself?" I was hyper when I wrote this, 'kay? Just review! Forget the books! Forget truth! JUST SAY WHAT YOU THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!! 


	2. The Confession

Secrets-The Confession  
by Moi  
  
A/N: This is sappy...I wasn't going to continue this...oh well...I did...=P *that's my new favorite smiley*  
  
It is time. I have decided. I cannot live with this charade any longer...my heart aches for Draco. He will be shattered from the very recesses of his soul if I do this...but I must. He would despise me even more if I confessed. I walk down the corridor, looking about at the faded portraits on the wall. I imagine what they might be saying about me...  
Stupid...  
Weak...  
Treacherous...  
Yes, that's what I am. I haven't got the spine to fess up to Draco. Andromeda's door looms ever closer. I ease it open and my sister throws herself on me, sobbing. I remember all those times we cried in each other's arms in our childhood. After one of us had been beaten, after being sent off to Hogwarts and having a sudden attack of homesickness, after graduating...we have spent many tears on each other.  
She asks me in a whisper if I really want to do it. I do. I have to. Why not? Nobody would care.   
I roughly break the embrace and stagger out the door, continuing down the hall...I imagine again the scorn of the portraits...I stop on a picture of Lucius Malfoy...and Narcissa...just a family portrait...Draco is less than a year old...It's the real Lucius. Not me. The fraud. The fake. I'm just standing in for him, as Andromeda is for Narcissa.   
Ironic, I think, smiling wryly, how my real name happens to be Luci. Luci-us. One of the Miseria twins. Luci and Annie...we were never seen apart. But now I am departing this Earth without Andromeda.   
I reach a balcony. The soft summer breeze ruffles my hair, bringing back fond memories of my father in the few moments when he showed affectino for the two of us...tears sting the corners of my eyes. It burns.   
For only a moment, I wish I could stand here forever, the breeze before me and the wall behind me, and the spectacular beauty of the Night below me. The stars above, beckoning at me to come and join them, the soft mists rising from the ground, asking me to come sweep across the grass every evening with them...  
I open my eyes, not realizing I drifted off into daydreaming. Even nature is telling me what to do now. I realize something, with a cold, bitter surge of anger. I have lived my entire life for someone else.  
I was always the cold, aloof, pureblooded girl, in school, brash as a boy. In reality, my soul is lonely, cramped, imprisoned, soured. I have no negative feelings for muggles or muggle-borns. My father forced my sister and I to be him.  
Then I was tempted by the Dark Arts. Voldemort had promised so much to the Death Eaters...he had promised he would take away our guilt, our pain, our conscience.   
I threw my heart, mind, and soul into it. I was so desperate for something to take my mind off my wretched youth that I barely realized Voldemort had total control over his minions at the height of his power. We couldn't resist him.  
I was forced to kill the Malfoys, and quite ready to...I killed Lucius, killed Narcissa, and...then Draco...my heart went out to him, whatever was left of it. I couldn't take his life, that sweet, innocent, little thing.  
He'd never had parents, never had friends, never actually lived. I took the matter to Andromeda, who sullenly agreed, and we raised Draco as our own for fourteen years.  
Fourteen years was enough. I had spent my life acting, speaking, and living for someone else. I'm finally going to do something especially for me.  
I climb up on the railing of the balcony, surveying the Night. I look up, just in time to see a comet. They say a comet appears when someone dies. The comet is early, in that case...once I'm off, there's no going back...I didn't bring my wand, no Levitation Charms for me...I shut my eyes, my entire body shaking, sweat gushing out of every pore, and...then...I crouch, readying myself to jump...  
"Father?"  
Draco's thin, curious voice startles me out of my concentration. I turn around, trying to look angry, but only exposing the emotions I have tangled with for fourteen plus years...I can't face him now...I fall rather than jump...my life flashes before my eyes...I can feel my body crumpling in on itself. The impact of the ground against me is dull, muffled. I'm not sure which one of us is more frightened about this...Draco, definitely. As far as he knows, that's his biological father about to jump off a balcony and kill himself.  
I only manage to stay conscious long enough to see Draco disappear downstairs...the wind blows, the mists swirl, the stars shimmer, and my world dissolves into blackness.  
  
My eyes flutter open. I'm afraid to look around, mortified I might come face-to-face with the Dark One. I muster up all my courage and glance at my surroundings, realizing...my heart sinks...I'm still alive. It didn't work. I'm in bed, upstairs, with Draco doing something off in the corner. He turns around and kneels down by me.  
"All right," he says softly, not sounding remotely irritated, merely sounding like he means business. "What were you doing up on the balcony in the dead of night ready to jump?'' I'm about to make up a wild yarn and try suicide again when I get back on my feet, but Draco dashes that possibility.  
'I want the truth, now."  
I grasp one of his hands and stroke it gently.   
"Draco," I begin heavily, not knowing exactly where to start, "I'm not your father. That's the point."  
Draco merely blinks, and nods for me to go on. How can he be so calm? I have this impending fear that he already knows the secret.  
"Your real father is..."  
"Dead?" he fills in for me. I nod, afraid to. He shifts in closer to me. "Go on," he rasps.  
I swallow hard.   
"Draco, I know you'll hate me forever for telling you this, but...I killed him. And your mother too. And I am a total stranger who was working for--" I catch myself, "You-Know-Who--"  
"Call him Voldemort," says Draco, staring unblinkingly at me, interested yet oddly expressionless. Before I can go on, he plunges in, "and you took me in with someone pretending to be my mum and raised me as your son and figured you couldn't live with yourself and attempted to kill yourself, right?"  
I just sit there in silence and nod weakly.  
"I suppose you hate me now, too," I mutter, more to myself. "Everyone hates me. My sister, You-Know--okay, Voldemort, you..." I turn away from him. I just hope he'll end it all and kill me.  
"No," he says softly, an odd thinness behind his voice now. "Why should I hate you? Didn't you take me in instead of letting me follow my parents into the hereafter?"  
Well...what can I say to that? Draco believes I was doing him a favor. I think it over. Wouldn't he hate me for killing his parents? Draco seemingly reads my thoughts.  
"I don't hate you," he reassures me, "I'm just glad you finally told me." He looks down at the ground, then back to me.   
"I was worried, " he says, in less than a whisper, the corners of his eyes welling up. I feel a horrible wave of remorse wash over me. "I thought you were going to die." He throws his arms around me and starts sobbing. I hug him back.   
"I don't want you to die..." His voice trails off, and he buries his head in my chest, his breathing coming in shallow threads. How could I? I think, silently berating myself. What would Draco have thought? He would have lived his life fatherless, never knowing why. I realize how incredibly lucky I was to have survived...is there still hope for me? Am I getting a second chance? It looks like it. I bend down and kiss Draco on the forehead. He looks up at me, still sniffling, the shock of finally hearing the truth now wearing off...we both know what the other is thinking:  
"I love you."  
  
THE END  
  
A/N II: Sap! Fluff! Mush! Oh well...Did you like it? I know it was really sappy and way off the books...but...um...uh...I don't care, how's that? Read/Review! Please! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease review this! Please!  



	3. The Dream

Secrets, Part 3-the Dream  
  
A/N: This is starting to sound like Animorphs titles...*shrugs* Secrets...the Confession...the Dream...*shrugs again* My piano teacher thinks I should use the computer only an hour a day...I'll live, but I won't post quite as much until March...*sighs heavily* My recital is on February 10th. Solo. I'm sooooooooo nervous! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! *calms down* Okay...fic time...!_~  
  
P.S.: If this fic REALLY confuses you, which it doubtless will, PUT YOUR EMAIL IN YOUR REVIEW AND ASK ME YOUR QUESTIONS IN THE REVIEW SO I CAN ANSWER THEM BY EMAIL! THANK YOU!  
  
~~~END NOTE~~~ ~~~PUT DOWN THAT CHAMPAGNE! NOW! QUIT CELEBRATING, PLEASE!~~~  
  
I cannot sleep.  
I have not been able to do so since that night...that night Draco rescued me from my own suicide...I told himm everything. Told him about his parents, about Andromeda, told him that I loved him...and I do. There is no one in this world who I could ever love more than that boy.  
  
True, he always tried to please me, believing I was his father, and now, nothing has changed. But...he gave me a sense of purpose when Andromeda and I took him in. A few years before Draco was born, we both found out we could never have children of our own and dismissed ourselves as useless to continue the line of the Miserias, a proud, old, nearly ancient family rivaled by none but the Malfoys.  
  
Draco gave us a sense of purpose. We had total and complete responsibility for another human being now that he was in our lives. He became our child in every way but legally. We didn't care. Let the Ministry take him. But they never did, they never found out.   
  
That is the past.   
  
Now...now is different. Draco has forgiven me. And that is all. His approval is the only thing that matters. He has forgiven Andromeda also, and we're becoming better 'parents' to him now that the secrets were revealed. Yet...  
  
Yet...  
  
I feel something is missing. Like I have not been totally forgiven. I know I have, but don't believe it. It is like when one finds out they have a terminal disease and are going to die. They know about their condition and their destiny, they know. But they do not believe, they take their false truths to the grave.  
  
Have I been forgiven?  
  
The answer is no.  
  
I have not been forgiven. And never will.  
  
Somehow, perhaps out of exhaustion from thinking and worrying half the night, I fall asleep. I am not dreaming so much as...floating. Around me are thousands of bubbles floating in a vast, endless, sea. Sometimes they come up and brush against me, then burst open to shower their contents everywhere. They contain memories.  
  
Memories.  
  
Memories of my father, of my mother before she died. Memories of school, of Lucius and Narcissa, memories of pain. There are rock walls in the ocean I am floating in, and they mark a very definite and concrete path. I merely follow the road, having no idea where I'm going.  
  
Soon, the road forks. Now, I am stuck. It is an odd feeling, but...I immediately think of going to the right. But something tells me there are horrors and darkness waiting ahead that way. Something tells me to go to the left. I take a look at what is down there and see a mist.   
  
Nothing but it. As I watch, this vapor comes toward me and wraps me in its clammy tendrils. It holds me prisoner and pushes me to the ocean floor.  
  
Suddenly, I hear the sound of roaring thunder, rolling in my direction, in all directions, as though pushed by a mighty hand. And the wall that divides the left and right forks crumbles into the sand and disappears. Where it once stood is now...not an angel, not an angel.  
  
A human man. I know him, I can tell I know him...from where? An eerie light glows around him, making him look like a piece of parchment with burnt edges. Who is he...? He drops to the ocean floor and wherever he steps, a bloodred rose springs up instantaneously. As he approaches, I feel my heart working its way to my throat.   
  
It is Lucius.  
  
Lucius Malfoy.  
  
He stands there, frighteningly relaxed, just looking at me. On instinct, I try to move, to get away from him, without giving myself a reason to. The evil mist holds me back, gently though at the same time roughly.  
  
"So, Luci," Lucius drawls, the way he always used to, with a touch of a warble to his voice, "we meet again."  
  
I say nothing.  
  
"Do you look upon my spectre with fear? Do you find yourself confronted by memories?" He advances two to three steps with every one of these odd questions, and my heartbeat accelerates painfully.  
  
"Luci..." he whispers, and though he does not diminish in any way, I feel as though I am losing him, as though he is drifting away. "Luci, remember...remember what happened when you joined the ranks of Voldemort..."  
  
I remember, all right. I remember everything.  
  
[FLASHBACK]  
  
The Miserias were an evil clan, the Malfoys a beacon of virtue. We were the bad girls, they were the good boys. We were uptight and snobbish to boiling point, they were fun-loving, easygoing people who could pull shadowy wanderers into the light.  
Something about Lucius had always haunted me, from the day we met during the Sorting Ceremony.  
We whispered or mouthed our greetings, and then could talk no more as "Malfoy, Lucius" and immediately "Miseria, Luci" were called. Lucius went to Slytherin, which came as a bit of a surprise, and I went to Ravenclaw. Andromeda was sorted right after I was, and we were, predictably, in the same house. Everyone complimented us and said we were indeed fit to be in Ravenclaw, after all, weren't we intelligent to a fault?  
True.  
We were almost scarily smart.  
Albeit, used diabolically.  
In the days that followed, I got better looks at Lucius. He constantly hung around Narcissa, a second year, who served as his mentor. Those eyes, I found myself thinking. I was both intrigued and repulsed by his eyes. They showed all and told none, as confusing as those bloody tarot cards Sibyll Trelawney would be poring over every mealtime. I hated her. It was a stroke of bad luck, I had always thought, that she was in Ravenclaw as well. She was a creep and a ditz.  
Lucius and I grew to be enemies as our school years progressed. Narcissa and he became an official couple and it was whispered of in my sixth year that they were engaged and would elope somewhere or other the day after our graduation. I despised this. What Narcissa and Lucius had together was love. They would both die for the benefit of the other. Andromeda and I had never known love. Half-bloods hated me, purebloods feared me. Muggles, of course, didn't know me.  
My father...he loved me, somewhere, but never showed nor told it. I couldn't even guess, and my childish beliefs led me to think he hated me and I was not really his daughter. Now, as an adult, I know he loved me. He was merely disappointed eternally that I was not the son he had wanted, nor was Andromeda.  
Graduation was a glorious thing for my sister and I. However, our joy was dampened horribly when not a week after, our father fell ill.   
Terminally ill.   
My mother had died when I was barely a month old. Andromeda was born the same day I was, we were a set of twins. My father...he was the first time I had experienced death up close, and I hated it.   
I hate myself to this day for blaming my father. I would tell him silently or through speech how much I hated the fact he was leaving me, and he would look at me with these terrible sad eyes, and I knew that what I was doing was wrong...  
  
[END FLASHBACK]  
  
Lucius looks at me again, his eyes glowing somewhat.  
  
"And then what happened, Luci? You joined Voldemort...and..."  
  
I swallow hard, my mouth sore from talking to him so much.  
  
"He was proud of Andromeda and I. He said we were valuable assets...too valuable..."  
  
"And then...?"  
  
Lucius' expression is stern, but there is this mad sparkle in his eye which I cannot interpret. Happiness? No. There is no way. What is he thinking of? What ghastly turn is this encounter going to curve around?  
  
"I..." I have no idea what to say. "I don't remember."  
  
Lucius now smiles, a malicious leer, the sparkle in his eyes flaring even more violently.  
  
"And then you killed me, Luci. Voldemort sent you to kill Narcissa, Draco, and I. And...you killed us...and what happened with Draco? What did you do with him?"  
  
I hear laughter around me, evil laughter, yet good laughter. The mist, I think. The mist is jeering at me. But I cannot look at it, it has grasped hold of my entire body, like the Devil's Snare.  
  
"Draco was innocent. You hurt me at Hogwarts, Lucius, through no fault of your own, but you hurt me." I look up at him, choked with my words. "You hurt me a lot."  
  
Lucius nods.  
  
"So I did. Go on."  
  
"Narcissa was bad to me...both of you were...but Draco never did anything but exist. I couldn't cut him down prematurely just because he was your child..."  
  
Lucius suddenly looks concerned and kneels in front of me, reaching out to wipe away my tears. It is only then I realize I am crying.  
"I couldn't...couldn't do it...couldn't kill him..."  
  
It is too much. I let myself collapse and Lucius allows me to lean against him for a few moments, sobbing quietly.  
  
"You couldn't kill him, Luci, and you didn't," he begins, once I've calmed down some. "And for this...for this, I am eternally grateful."  
  
Lucius stands again and looks at me for the third time, in that curious way that one cannot understand.  
  
"Luci...forgive yourself. That's why you are not forgiven. You do not know how much I owe to you now." He looks directly into my eyes and starts contemplating what he's going to say to me next. I have the feeling he is trying to soften whatever he wants to tell me.   
  
"You did the right thing when you spared Draco." He smiles thinly. "It was what your father would have wanted."  
  
Lucius lapses into the mist, which then disappears. I feel lost.   
  
"Lucius!" I cry in vain. "Where are you? Don't leave me, don't leave me...I need you, come back...please..."  
  
Something lifts me up to the surface of the water, and just as I break, the sun reaches my eyes again, and the dream is ended.  
  
I look around fleetingly. The weather is the most beautiful it can be in winter. It snowed in the night, and everything is clean and perfect and new. Indoors, there is beauty as well. I turn from the window and look at the floor. Am I forgiven? I ask no one in particular.  
  
Have I been forgiven?  
  
The answer is yes.  



End file.
